The network structure of multilevel water resources governance in Central America
2018
Jacob Hileman | Mark Lubell
The acceleration of changes in global water resource systems is exacerbating the ability of governance institutions to adapt, particularly in developing world regions. We highlight one of the key challenges to resilience in environmental governance - coordinating governance processes within and across multiple interacting geographic levels - and investigate structures of local, regional, and multilevel water governance networks using empirical data from Central America. We examined hypotheses of multilevel governance network structure and function using descriptive statistics and exponential random graph models, and found that closed and open network structures are more prevalent at the local and regional levels, respectively, and that cross-level ties impart small-world structures upon the multilevel network. Small-world networks are theorized to provide joint benefits on cooperation, policy learning, and resource distribution, all of which are necessary for effective water resources governance.
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